ah, finally. found my wandering books in my daughter's boyfriends house storage.
so just opened it randomly and fell open the words The Art of Retrieval. now, one time I thought it should be called the art of retrieval instead of just retrievals. you know how I play with words when you write. is it really an art? what is art? I think it is an art and the word lends respectfulness to the act. I think art can be like character building. as a painter what are you expressing? yourself in the colors you splash on the canvas of life.
Bruce is so clear the way he writes. anyone can understand his style. anyone not knowing what retrievals are gets a very clear picture at once with just a few paragraphs. I have to make sure when I write I am this clear also, so thanks Bruce and I continue to get good ideas from the book.
hugs, alysia

I too like that it's the ' Art  of Retrievals.'
Art flows smoothly during the act of creating it.
Techniques are involved but they become so natural that they are just extensions of the artist's intent. To call it 'Techniques of Retrievals" might get us going "step one: Uh....; step two:...Uh " and the process would be so broken up that it wouldn't lead to anything.
And art is created in almost (or actually) an altered state, which happens also as you move into a retrieval. I don't know if Bruce has ever been involved in art but he certainly knew what he meant when he used the term here!

Today, reading further on the above chapter, I read how many times Bruces mentions to allow yourself the creativity of pretending. this appears to be to me what children do. therefore have we as adults lost the ability to pretend?
you may ask what is the use in pretending? let me quote from this book some outstanding verbiage from step 23 thru 25 of the Art of Retrieval: "one of the important goals of learning the Art of Retrieval is to use the basic premise to PROVE to yourself our afterlife is real. Pretending is a key factor in accomplishment of that goal.
(my addition follows notice the talk above does not ask others to prove something to you, and when they can't prove their experience is real, concluding they are flakey new agers; you do retrievals and prove it only to yourself our afterlife is real; you don't go to a lab and take measurements of the afterlife knowledge.)

continuing quote from step 24: Know that even workshop participants who have almost all of the information they gathered verified as real report that it felt like they were pretending and fabricating the entire experience as it happened. it can feel like you are making it all up even when you're not, that's just part of the nature of learning how to explore the afterlife.
25. After the exercise (refer to the book) as time and opportunity permit, look for ways to verify and validate any of the information you gathered during the exercise. With that you're ready for your first retrieval exercise.

my input: back in 2001 or 02, I did about 2 retrievals a week by pretending; always hoping it would soon be verified or seem more real. i didn't do retrievals to prove to myself the afterlife was real. I already knew that since about 1965. I just wanted to see if I had it in me to assist life. it didn't become more than just imagination until after doing the EGE (energy gathering exercise) where a guide said, ok you're ready enough, c'mon, where do you want to go? I said a retrieval please, and this time make it real to me? she said no sweat Sherlock. (not exactly those words) my imagination had paid off in gold coins. as for the verification, as I said, I already had proof of the afterlife...I got my answer that I could be assisting life this way and that retrievals could be a very lucid and conscious activity and the question of making it up or not would not even be a question while you were doing it and not even after returning back to C1 dimension. the verification was getting the name of the state where Cami lived and died; also got she had been a student in a town in South Dakota. looked at a map later and found the town. I had mispelled it by one letter but I would mispell it in C1 area the same. I mispell things all the time. this would not cause me any doubts as my degree of lucidity out there was intense. another verification was meeting guides during this retrieval. 3 men who looked like anybody on the street. they congratulated me on the retrieval, said they had been trying to wake her up for awhile and she was sunk in her depression too deep. you would be sunk in the pitts too if you'd gotten killed. the fact that I could converse, remember words in a logical manner with these guides set the experience apart from dream scenario where events seem disconnected by symbols and shifting locale therefore the code must be deciphered.

remembering the PUL Bruce talks about: this is part of the early steps of retrievals; remembering a time when you felt love. anytime at all in your life. is important as love expands the awareness into these areas. Love, an unconditional type, was all over the above retrieval, and it caused Cami to notice me. I had become a huge affectionate dog and it woke her up. you can take any form you wish in retrivals to gain the attention of the retrievee. Once you get their attention, you can converse with them from there. Cami put her hand on my head and patted me. Thats how I ascertained later, I must look like dog love to her; and the way I pounced on her was the way a dog would. (ok, I was a little awkward in my approach, but it worked!)

what this retrieval felt like, was a reward or even an initiation in a way, for consistently having the intention to assist life by utilizing my imagination twice a week for awhile.
I'm a little excited to read Bruce's latest book finally. I was so busy writing down my experiences through out life, I hadn't read his. I love the simplicity of the steps.

hugs, alysia